


Walk In Hours

by majingojira



Category: Marvel, Runaways (Comics), The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Can be considered in Canon with Supernatural Taisen, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 19:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12139122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/majingojira/pseuds/majingojira
Summary: Nico Minoru goes to see Harry Dresden to help her with a Warden related problem.





	Walk In Hours

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fusion story, assuming the Dresden Files exists with aspects of the Marvel Universe and working from there. it can be considered a side story of Supernatural Taisen if you want, but it can stand on its own.

Every Warden of the White Council gets ‘wanted’ posters of a sort, covering every Warlock currently running around.  So, when one came into my office asking for help, I knew my day was not getting off to a good start.  

She was a small young woman. Not Murphy-small, but still on the short site of average with a slight build that made her seem Murphy-small.  She wasn’t much older than my apprentice Molly either on my guess.  Probably a college freshman or so, if she was still going to school at all.  She was Japanese as near as I could tell, with long dark hair held back in a rough ponytail that had various strands of hair escaping it in perfectly arranged disorder.  It somehow complemented the style of her ensemble.  It could definitely be labeled ‘goth’ with the primary colors being black and white, with a dash of red here and there to accent parts of it, but it was far different from Molly’s Gothic attire, that she had mostly grown out of.  Where Molly was all about punkish rebellion, this young woman’s outfit was elegant.  As though she could go to a fancy party or be in a club and fit in either way.  Though I couldn’t tell if she had floating sleeves, opera gloves or both, the light accents of red and gold of her blouse contrasted the blacks of her dress, gloves, and something tied around her neck, like a 17 th century version of a tie.  It reminded me of Freddy’s ascot from  _ Scooby Doo _ , only black and far better suiting.

She also had a staff.  It had a solid black staff, crowned with a golden sphere and circle atop it.  She held it in one hand with a firmly, but effortlessly.  She attempted to keep a calm face, but the way she held the staff and other little movement of her face betrayed her nervousness.  

From what I remembered of her file, this was Nico Minoru.  Wanted by the White Council for violating the First Law of Magic, and had been on the run for about 3 years. Considered very dangerous.  Best to approach this one cautiously.  I mean, she probably doesn’t know I’m a Warden. Maybe.  If I’m actually lucky this time. 

“Can I help you?” I moved in my rolling chair toward my desk with more nonchalance than she held before me.  Her body was tense with nervousness. Not quite fight or flight nerves, but close to them.  Still, I readied my shield bracelet just in case.  She either didn’t notice, or ignored the minor bit of defensive readiness.

“I came down here,” she said, “Because of a few recommendations I got.  They say you help people.  Even with the White Council.”

Very direct, which is a rare thing. Usually my prospective clients come in either skeptical or desperate.  She fit in with the latter, but without the meandering feart sometimes induces.  My mind was tuned for deceit or ramblings of some sort, so it took me a second to get out a response.  I mean, yeah, it was true.  Even though I work for them.    


“Yes,” I said, “I can do some things with that.”  

“Okay,” she said, “First of all, I need to know: Why the hell are they even after me?  I mean, the first Warden’s I came across just tried to jump me, and I think the rest of the ones I encountered just kept that up because I defended myself. So that’s the first thing I want to know.”

I blinked, “They didn’t tell you?”  

She shook her head, “Not at first.  Eventually a few gave a rattled off rants about murder  _ as _ they jumped me.  Sorry, but it’s a bit hard to hear pronouncements and decrees over fireballs and lightning bolts.  But honestly, I just want to have it all laid out at this point.”

That rang alarm bells in my head, enough to get my headache started.  Usually, Wardens will tell the accused what they are wanted for unless they prove extremely dangerous.  I mean, she was dangerous, but it wasn’t like she was that pyromancer who burned three wardens to death.  There was a panic in her voice that I recognized could only be born of confusion.  She hid it well, but it still crept through.  Well, if she’s being straight with me, I’ll be straight with her.  “From what I can recall without checking the files, you’re wanted for violating the First Law of Magic” which was using magic to kill a human being, “about 3 years ago.”

Her head dropped, letting her chin almost touch her collar, “It always comes back to that,” she sighed. 

I let her be for a moment and waited. When she was ready, she looked up at me and said, “I didn’t kill anyone. My parents and the others . . . they died. They all died defending me and my friends from monsters.”  

“Me and my friends,” she went on, “We only really became friends because our parents worked together. And by worked together, I mean they were part of a cult.  The Pride.  Every year, they’d gather up and sacrifice a young person to the Gibborim.”  At my silence, she added, “Um, A subset of the Nephilim, half-angel giants.”

I’ve dealt with fallen angels before.  Not something I look forward to ever doing again.  Half-breed giant fallen angels was another load of bad on top of that.  From what I remember Bob telling me, unlike regular fallen, they didn’t need permission to affect others. They had a modicum of free will.  Which, with their power, made them extremely dangerous.

I told her to keep going.

“As near as I can figure, they wanted to remake the world” she looked away and then said “And then give it to us.  Their children.  We botched one of their sacrifices so bad that the Gibborim decided to scrap their evil plan, as well as the interlopers, and their failed minions.”

She sighed, “They died so we could escape.  Most of us, anyway.”  Sadness tinged her voice. I could think of things I never wanted to talk about again, even to my friends.  To do so to a total stranger took a lot of courage.  Or foolishness.  Or both. 

She looked at me, her voice a growl, “So, now hearing that I’m blamed for their deaths.  For saving the world,” she stopped, and took a calming breath, “is really, really annoying.”

I didn’t think she was lying, though my ability to judge if a woman is lying or not has not exactly been the greatest.  Her story was . . . not unbelievable, but on the high end of extremely weird. I thought about what she said.  The Pride was an oddity in that they were a known criminal power, as well as supernatural one.  Accorded and everything.  Then, three years ago, the heads of the organization were gone.  Simply gone.  The center didn’t hold and the mortal authorities took down most of their mortal contacts, the supernatural ones and a few others scattered to the winds.  The word was the heads of the Pride were destroyed by their own progeny.  It seemed that was only half the truth.   


Most of the places the Pride held sway were either covered thoroughly by the cops years ago, but if her story held out, it laid out other possibilities.

“Where did this all go down?”  I asked, leaning forward.

She winced, “Secret underwater base.  It kinda flooded when the Gibborim were throwing fire everywhere.”

She stopped as if it only then struck her, “Does the council have like people who do like remote viewing?  Because if it’s the death of my folks they’re on me about, how’d they even find out about it?”

I put that together as soon as she said it, “Probably because, from what I remember of your file--”

“I have a file?  You’ve seen my file?” She tensed a bit.    


I put up my hands, appeasing, “And I’m not going to rush in blindly about any of this.  Alright?  I’m going to listen to what you have to say, and I can tell you what I know of your case from the Warden’s side of it.”  I rubbed my hands together, “and hopefully resolve this issue with everyone keeping their heads.”

She relaxed only slightly, “So, what exactly am I wanted for?”

“You’re wanted for the death of two Wardens”

“Well, unless my parents were Wardens too--”

“Not that I know of--” 

“Then the records are wrong. I haven’t killed anyone.”  She said it with some force, but there was no outburst of power like I’d get from Molly when she got riled up.  She was angry, for sure, but managed to get some control over her power.    


“Look,” I said, “You’re situation is a complicated one.  I want to go over your case file in more detail.  But I need you to stick around.”

She folded her arms in front of her chest, the petulance of youth taking over, “You mean stay in your custody.”

I did my best to hide my wince, “Technically, I’m not supposed to let you leave my sight.”

“Custody,” she said again, “Right.  Look, before that happens, I’ll have to make a call.”

“A call?”

“Otherwise, my friends will storm the place and rip everything apart.  If you’re going to help me, I guess I have to play ball a bit to.”

A nice change of pace at least.  She had a bit more maturity than my apprentice, thank God.    


But she also apparently had a squad on standby in case anything went wrong to wreck whoever attacked her.  Glad to know I’m not the only paranoid person in the room.    


I slid her the phone, and she dialed a number.

“Yeah, Chase?  Things are moving, but I’m gonna have to stay with the Wizard for a bit,”  She listened for a moment, “Okay, fine. Passcode Swordfish.  Okay?”

She rolled her eyes, hung up and pushed the phone back to me. 

“Swordfish?”

“Someone,”  She folded her hands on her lap, “Got a little too into the planning of this trip.”

“Alright then, I--”  she raised a hand to cut me off.  

She bit her lip, “I need to know if there’s any other laws of magic I might have broken.  Because, honestly, I’ve done some mean stuff with magic before.  And I don’t want to escape murder charge only for something worse to come from it.”  

I nodded, and handed her a pamphlet, “Here.  It’s a short and sweet version I worked up to save me time explaining things to newbie wizards and witches.  The First law is against murder.  The second against transforming others.”

“Does putting an illusion around someone count?”

I blinked, “No.  That’s also really hard to do.”

She spun the staff around her hand, “Well, I can cheat a bit.”

That wasn’t ominous in the slightest, “Anyway, the third law prohibits entering others minds.  The fourth is against enthrallment.  The fifth is against raising the undead.  The sixth prohibits time travel.  And the last one is against summoning outsiders.  The details are in the pamphlet there.”

She was quiet for a moment. It was though she was trying to assemble a poker face for a moment, but gave up halfway.  “Well, crap.  I guess I am an outlaw.”

I said nothing and let her keep talking.  

“I mean, there was a really good reason, but I doubt that matters,” she sighed.  She already had an idea of how draconian the Council was given what she claimed to have been through.  That was both a good thing, and a bad thing.  A bad thing in that shew knew exactly how deep she was getting into things, and a good thing in that she was being so straightforward with me.  It lessened my headache just a little bit.

This just kept getting better and better, “Do you want to tell me?”

She nodded, “I broke the 3rd law, twice.”

So many memories with my own apprentice came flooding in.  She had the look, sort of.  Now she had the same criminal record.  Great.

“Okay, what was your reason for violating the mind of another?”

“To avoid a temporal paradox.” She said flatly.

My eyes widened, “You time traveled?”  

“Well, once.  Inadvertently.  And with science, not magic!”  She squirmed.  “The other time was dealing with a spell someone else cast. Look, it’s just really messy.  In order to keep the timeline stable, I had to alter memories once, and place a compulsion a second time.”

Whelp, I definitely had a headache now.  Straightforward or not, this was going to be a pain.  

Without preamble, she started explaining: “The first time, some jerks called up a past version of one of the Pride members with magic. The spell holding him here was easy enough to deal with, enough energy to break it would snap him back to his rightful place in time, but I had to wipe his memory before he went back in order to make sure he didn’t change the past when he went back.  I know that violates the law, but what the hell else was I supposed to do? Let him go back and basically undo the last 30 years?”

I couldn’t think of anything to add to that, so she continued unabated.  “The second time, me and my friends were transported to 1902 with a piece of Pride technology.  We ran into the inventors of that technology along the way and things . . . did not go well. Before we left, I placed a compulsion on them so that they couldn’t act on what they learned in those few days we were in 1902.”

That was really, really nasty.  It got the job done, but the psychological damage such a spell could cause would be severe. The real kicker was no one would notice it from behavior. From what I understood, it would just create brain tumors and those would lead to an eventual full mental breakdown.  Extremely nasty.  

She sighed, “I know, it all sounds crazy, but again, I didn’t want to make an alternate timeline or otherwise cause a paradox.  It’s not like I had many options!”  she stood up, “I don’t really know mind magic, and the Staff of One” she shook her staff, “doesn’t really like it when I cast the same spell twice.”

That was an odd thing to say.  She wasn’t happy about what she did, but she did what she had to do, or at least thought she had.  The first one was easy to work, and probably the ‘safest’ way to deal with that problem.  The other was just . . . mean.  If she was telling the truth about it, and given the threat she faced, I was stumped to think of a solution. 

“When did this happen?”

“About a year ago,” She said.

“And you haven’t had the urge to invade minds since then?”

She shook her head, “I like to think it was a momentary lapse of sanity.”  She looked down and shrank, pulling the staff close to her, “I had been tortured by my great grandmother for a day just before I did that.  It sucked.  But 1902 sucked big time for everyone.  Even the people from that time.”

I nodded and just accepted it.  She broke my weirdness-meter. 

I tossed this all in my head until I got some semblance of a coherent idea. “I’m kind of stumped, I’ve not dealt with time travel before, and frankly, I never want to.”  I ran a hand through my hair, “But here’s the thing.  The extenuating circumstances were severe enough that it could be argued that actions like that were necessary. But the real kicker is that no one has any bodies to examine to determine if what you’re saying is true or not.”

“I know,” she said, “I just wanted to let you know about those because I hear that sort of thing taints your soul.  So, if or when you soul gazed me, you didn’t confuse the taint of those things with that of the murders I’m accused of or something.”

And that cinched it.  She was telling me the truth. Maybe not the whole truth, but as close to a straight answer as I had ever gotten from a first time client.   And unfortunately for me, it just made things worse.  After a ‘quick’ soulgaze, which only made my headache worse by the way, I brought her to my apartment, so Mouse could watch her and I could do some research.  

* * *

When I got to my basement lab and got Bob up to speed, his response was not what I expected, but did go on to make the aspirin I took before heading down well worth it.  

“Wait, wait, wait,” Bob said, his voice twitchy, “You said her name was Minoru?”

“Yup, Nico Minoru.”  

“Did she have her Staff with her?” tere was a slightly worry in his voice.

“Yeah,” I said, slowly. 

Bob didn’t answer for a moment.  “Well, she obviously isn’t a full Warlock, otherwise she’d have leveled the place by now.”

“Mouse is watching her,” I said. 

Bob’s eyelights looked at me and after a moment, laughed.  It was derisive and condescending.  Not a normal Bob laugh.  “Oh, Harry.  You really don’t know a thing about the Staff of One.”

“Hence why I’m asking you about it since you do know.” I said completely calmly and not restraining an urge to throw things at Bob.  

“That I do. And specifically I know to stay away from it!  The Staff of one is one of the most powerful magical instruments in the world.  Even an untrained talent can become a nightmare overnight with that thing.”

I arched a skeptical eyebrow, “How?”

“Well,” He said, “The staff is a bit like me, only it doesn’t talk that much and, well, it knows more magical theory than I do.  I don’t like to admit it, but it’s true! All the holder needs to do is think of a bad memory, utter any word or phrase related to what they want to happen, and the staff does the rest.  It’s totally a cheat.  Put some experience behind it, and things get even worse.”

I whistled, “Explains how she got into crazy time traveling stuff with that much power.”

“That’s not the half of it,” Bob said, “The staff only truly works for those of the Minoru bloodline.  And in their hands, they become some of the strongest sorcerers on the planet.”

I had to bite, “How strong?”

“Her Great Grandmother, if she is a Minoru, was on the Senior Council until her death in the 1960s,” Bob said, “Sakura Minoru, the Witchbreaker.”

“That’s not a fun title,” I said.

“Given she’s the one who handed Kemler 4 or his 7 deaths, that title wasn’t just for show.”

I sat up in my chair, knocking it to the floor with a clattering sound that echoed against the concrete walls around me, “What?!”

“The Staff of One allows a caster to draw upon almost every kind of magic available.  It’s limited only by the imagination and past suffering of the user.  And most of them make sure to have as much suffering in their life as possible.  So you can imagine what a cheery bunch the Minorus are.  Still, it has its benefits. With a word or even a thought, they can do almost anything. In a duel, that sort of action is almost impossible to handle.  You never know what could be thrown at you.  Things I’m afraid to even mention fear that Staff.”

I rubbed my temples, “And now it’s in the hands of a barely trained teenager.  How did that happen?”

“Well, if she’s telling the truth, it looks like it didn’t like her mother much,” Bob said, “Most likely it bonded directly with her soul.  Only way for someone to get it off her now would be to, um, off her.”

I thought on it, remembering the bonds between her and the staff in my Soulgaze of her.  I sat back down, “So, if she is being framed, then we have a motive.”

“Many would see this new bearer as a weak point, and would try and get the staff for themselves.  If she hasn’t gotten to close to it. If she has, any other talent who picks it up while she’s still alive would be eaten by the thing.”

“Eaten?”

“Devoured.  Consumed.  Gobbled up.” Bob elaborated. “The Staff is extremely protective of its bearers.  So anyone after it would need to be very careful.  Rumor has it that the Staff has raised several members of the Minoru family completely from the dead just because there weren’t any other Minoru’s around to wield it.”

“Wait, full resurrection?  Like back to full life?  Like . . .”

“Not like that,” Bob sighed, “That was something different. This, if the rumors are true, would be simpler. Healing the body rapidly, and making sure the soul was still tethered to it and then jump starting the whole mess.  Still, obscenely powerful and complex as hell.  

“Let’s get back on track,” I said.  We could deal with how scary the Staff of One was later, “So anyone after the Staff wouldn’t be smart to attack directly, but use others to do the deed and pick up the Staff after it’s expended it’s . . . anger.”

“Precisely!” Bob chirped, “Bad news for whoever’s after her.  But bad news for us, because they’re playing it smart in order to avoid being digested by an otherwise inanimate object.”

“So, the options are claim self-defense against the Pride, or try and prove who really killed them,” I sighed, “Both are longshots.”

“Well,” Bob said, “There is one problem with that whole line of thinking.”

“Which is?”  

“The death of her parents wasn’t the violation she’s wanted for.”

I took a steadying breath, “Go on.”

“According to the records,” Bob said, “She slew two wardens there to check up on her without so much as blinking an eye.  Vaporized into a pile of ash and melted metal bits.”

Bob’s eye lights moved to look at me closely, “She didn’t mention that did she?”

I shook my head, “Not at all.  It doesn’t track with what I saw of her.”

The image came back to me, of her walking through adversity after adversity, a child in one arm whose face seemed to change with each moment, and be more than one child at the same time, and the other holding the Staff Of One, which was chained to a monstrous bruning figure as massive as a mountain, its hands taken up by maces.  She was hurt, but she hadn’t let it turn her.  Burdened beyond reason, but persisting on for the sake of the child in her arms.  

“Well, you do have a thing about women in distress, Harry.”

I groaned. He was right, but I shook my head anyway, “Not this time.  I soul gazed her, and didn’t see anything like that.  She hasn’t killed anyone directly with magic. She’d kill people if she had to, but . . . no.  She she hasn’t killed with magic as near as I can tell.” 

“And you’re sure about that?  Given the Staff--”

“I saw that insider her too.”

“Tell me, what was the shape of the top like?”

I thought about it and answered, “Sort of like an ace of spades in outline with some dangling bits hanging down from the tips.”

“Hmm, then she’s decently bonded with the staff.  Probably hasn’t faced her Grimmshape yet. So it’s not as bad as it could be, but it’s nowhere near good.”  After a moment he added, “And you’re sure she hadn’t directly killed anyone?”

“Yes, Bob,” I said, only a little bit exasperated.  .  

“Then the real problem we have,” Bob said, “Is why does the council think she has?”

I thought on it, did some old school investigation and research that made good use of all I’d learned from Nick Christian back at Ragged Angel, then I gave a call to Murphy who managed to confirm my suspicions quickly.  That settled, I gave a call to the regional commander for the western United States.  

“Ramirez,” a voice smooth answered.  Carlos Ramirez was one of the few Wardens I liked, and the youngest regional commander in the group.  

“It’s Dresden,” I said.

“Harry!” His voice picked up, “What’s up?”

“Got some questions, is this line secure?”

“As it can be.  You want meet somewhere instead?”

“How fast can you get to Chicago?”

There was a pause, I heard some paper’s rustling as though he were checking something.  “Lucky I got the time.  Give me an hour,” he said, “Accorded Neutral Grounds?”

It was code talk, but easy for us to understand, “Of course.”

* * *

McAnally’s Pub was an old style pub underground in more ways than one.  It catered to the supernatural community almost exclusively.  If you weren’t in the know, you didn’t know.  And you’d miss out on Mac’s godly beer.  One of the few perks of being in the know with the supernatural community.  I went down to the basement bar with my undersized Ankylosaurus of a dog Mouse.  I called in early to set up a ‘private’ event, and made sure we weren’t being eavesdropped with a few tricks Bob told me about.  Once those were in place, I went in.

Ramirez was already waiting for me when I got there. Classically Latin features marked his face, as well as a smile.  He had only a bit of his full warden gear visible, I could see his spell laid gauntlet on a belt loop.  No grenades this time.  

“How is it that I managed to beat you here when I had to come from California, and you had to come from a few blocks away?”  He said with a smile, “My talent can only account for so much.”

“Research,” I said as I joined him at the bar, “You order already?”

He shook his head, and I got us some beer for the two of us, and steak sandwiches for the three of us.  When they were all done, we went to a back table.  

“So, what was it that was so important that you couldn’t talk over the phone about,” he took a pull from his beer, “Man, that’s good.  Worth the trip alone.”

I nodded in agreement. Since I introduced Mav’s to him, he’d taken any chance to go down again when he could and I could hardly blame him.  “I assume you’ve ran into Nico Minoru.”

His whole body tensed when I mentioned that name.  I took it as a yes.  

“What’s your take on her?” I said as neutrally as I could.

“Dangerous,” he answered, “complicated, and dangerous.”

He rolled his beer in his hands, “Ya gotta understand, California is the one heck of a hotspot these days. For two years now, things have been a level of crazy not even you could inflict on a situation.”  

I feigned offense, “Mwah?”

“I know.  Seems impossible, but great talent attracts great challenges I suppose,” he said with a smile, but it soon faded as he continued. “Some of what I’ve been through would make even you look twice. And she, well, she’s trying to pull a  _ you _ of sorts.”

I blinked, “A  _ me _ ?”

“Big, dangerous wizard to keep the other supernatural powers in a city on their toes.  With the Pride gone, she took on all comers to fill their niche. Weird ones too.”  He turned to look at me directly, though not in the eyes, “One time a Nazi specter that manifested as a swarm of killer bees attacked the city out of the blue..”

I whistled, “That is different.”

“She and her gang stopped it,” he said, “playing full on superhero.  Or mafia don.  Either way, LA is part of her territory and she’ll track down and destroy any threat that comes up.  Other wizards included, apparently.”

“You fight her?”

“Not directly.  She’s got about half a dozen scions and talents acting as a guard for her.  Most of the times I ended up against her, no one could get past them.  Wardens draw their sword, her ferromancer has them dodging their own blades.  Take her at ranged, she has some kind of rainbow fairy thing to shield her.  Try to get in close without the swords, then you have a 4ft kid with the strength an ogre or an honest to god velociraptor to get through!”

“Wait,” I raised a hand bidding him stop, “A velociraptor?  Like in  _ Jurassic Park _ ?”

He nodded and shrugged loosely, “And it has a nose ring for some reason.  And that’s just who she started with when Wardens were first hunting her.  Still, most of the time they were pointing their power at the right bad guys: ghouls, trolls, warlocks, vampires.  Then word came down how they took out two newbie wardens.  That’s when I moved.”

Ramirez then lowered the collar of his shirt to reveal a jagged teardrop shaped scar on his shoulder. Then a second.  And a third.  “Got a matching one on the other shoulder, and two more near my kidneys.  Sure, they only make me more ruggedly handsome, but being pinned by that raptor is not something you soon forget.”

He let his shirt fall naturally as he added, “And when she casts something, it’s bad.  First, her voice drops deeper than Darth Vader’s, with more gravel.  And the spells themselves are nasty.  Nasty and strong.  ‘Ants in the Pants’ stopped one team of wardens cold.  Another time, she said something like “cuckoo” and the team was inundated by very angry, very invulnerable chickens. And the one time, she simply told them ‘brown note’ and that was that.”

I shuddered, “Definitely nasty.  But not lethal.”

“Anyone less talented than me would take a mortal blow to the ego from stuff like that,”  He smiled, “I avoided each one of them, but, alas, even this much talent can’t handle 5 to 1 odd like that.  Would wreck you pretty good, Harry.”

“5 to 1 odds would wreck most people,” I said.  I let it hang there a moment before saying, “What’s your take on her besides dangerous?”

He thought about it and said, “You think something is up with her.”

I nodded, “I think she’s been set up.”

Ramirez considered the idea, “Why would someone do that?”

“Someone wants her staff, near as I can figure,” I told him. ‘Someone in the council’ went unsaid, as did ‘this might be Black Council shenanigans’, but he got it.  “It’s some kind of high end artifact.”

“I can confirm that part at least,” he said, “Think it could be related to the whole Pride mess?”

I hadn’t considered that, “Possibly. Either way, she’s being set up.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because the Warden’s she’s accused of killing don’t actually exist,” I said.

“What?”

“The records we have don’t extend into the real world, and nothing in our records would indicate that they were removed from it as we can get sometimes.  No Social Security Numbers, no diplomas, and phone numbers which never actually were applied to where they said they were.  These Wardens, Keller and Hill, simply don’t exist.”

Ramirez took a moment digesting that and sighed, “Madre de Dios.”

“Yeah,” I said, “That was my overall reaction.”

“So,” he finished his beer, “How do you want to play this?”

“For once,” I said, “I’m gonna play the long game.  Think you can keep the heat off her for a while.”

“Well,” he said, “I am the regional commander of the Wardens out there.  I can prioritize some things over others,” he paused and added, “And after what happened last time, I’d be happy to.”

I took the bait, “What happened last time?”

“Morgan got involved.”

I whistled.  Morgan was as relentless as a fully loaded freight train, and about as much flexibility when it came to the Laws of Magic.  Tried to get me killed enough times for that impression of him to stick pretty hard.

“How is she still alive?”

Ramirez shivered.  Like, something deep within him shook.  “She allied herself with the Ghost Rider.”

I looked away from Ramirez and stared into nothing for a moment, “Yeah.  Yeah, that’d do it.  I mean, he still tried and put up one hell of a fight for all the good it did.  She had some strong followers before, but now she’s aligned with the Ghost Rider,” Ramirez sighed, “It’d take someone on the Senior Council getting involved to get past a guardian like that.”

I whistled, “So, in addition to a kid who somehow has high tech tools that work in the presence of mortal magic, some sort of living rainbow, a 12 year old with the strength of an ogre, a ferromancer, a botanomancer, and a freakin’ dinosaur. Now she has the damned Ghost Rider on her side.”

Ramirez added, “And she’s adding more and more as time goes on.  One of my Warden’s saw her with a metal ogre and a talent who specializes in radiation.”

After I almost choked on my beer, and inquired firmly about that one, he added “It’s just as scary as it sounds, Dresden.  I’ve learned to effectively lead line my shields thanks to her.” Ramirez said, “Gives your party a run for it.”

“I still can’t get over this,” I rolled my beer in my hands, “Morgan backed off of something?”

Ramirez gave me a stern look, “Do you know much about the Rider, Dresden?”

I shook my head, “Not much.”

“Look it up sometime.  It was one of the first things I was warned about when I became Regional Commander of the Southwest.”

I grumbled, “No one warned me about the local powers around here.”

Ramirez smiled, “That’s because you already managed to tick them all off.”

“Fair enough,” I laughed lightly before taking another pull.  

“So, I take it you have a plan?”  Ramirez didn’t look at me while asking.

“Not much of one,” I said, “I think if we can keep Morgan or anyone else off her back, it might force the hand of whoever is after it.  If we play our cards right and keep our ears to the ground, it may force whoever is after her to overextend themselves.  Once they’re out in the open, I have enough evidence to clear her.”

‘Because if we tip our hand know, the repercussions would tear the council apart’ went unsaid.  

“I think I can manage that,” Ramirez said, “Of course, if someone tries to throw a ‘lazy Mexican’ comment at me for not pursuing her more actively, I’m going to open up a tab here in your name.  One of Mac’s Dark per comment.”

I nodded, “That’s fair.”

* * *

When Ramirez left, the bar opened to the public.  I stayed at Mac’s to meet my client, some of the locals to the supernatural scene filtered in the interrum.  She entered with some apprehension at first, until she saw the ‘Accorded Neutral Grounds’ sign.   She sat next to me, and ordered a soda.  At the look she got from me, she shrugged, “I’m 20 and don’t have a taste for the stuff.”  

“Come back in a year and Mac’ll change your mind,” I said, saluting Mac as I did.  He gave a nonverbal grunt of acknowledgement.  

“So, good news or bad news.” Nico said.  

“A mix,” I admitted, “For the moment, I got the heat turned down as best I could.  The root of the problem is still there, but you won’t officially be bloodying Warden noses for a while.”

She sighed, with a hint of a smile behind it, “I guess that means I just have to worry about cowboy werewolves and super-Nazis made of bees.”

I was honestly hoping the super-Nazi made of bees was not a real thing. Sadly, reality is often more cruel and stupid than we’d like. 

“Can I ask you something?”

Nico nodded.  

“You’ve been gathering people around you,” I said, “People with power from what I heard.  There could be a lot of reasons for this: protection, some long off goal, but I want to know what your reason is.  Why are you protecting Los Angeles?”

She sighed and shrugged, “Someone’s got to.  LA is full of the desperate, and people drunk with power who, without the Pride around, are free to do . . . whatever they think they can get away with.  Wannabes will engage in quite a lot of black magic to get what they want.  And that’s not even getting into the Faerie Courts, Vampires, and whatever other predators that want to stake their claim.  It’s a bit much for one person, or even 6 people to handle.  So, I made some friends.”

“Including the Ghost Rider,” I added.

She did something I didn’t expect when I mentioned him. She blushed. “Okay, that one happened by accident.”

“But you’ll use it,” I said.  

“Considering he’s one of the heaviest hitter I know, it doesn’t hurt.”

“One of?”

She wagged a finger, “Nope. I still have a few cards in hand that I don’t want widely known.”

I nodded and said nothing.

“So, is that it?”  She asked.

Again, I nodded, “As much as can be done for now.  And I don’t feel like charging you for changes that could take years to work out.  So, that is it.”

She paid me, left some for Mac, and headed to the door.  

Mouse stood up at attention as a huge, reptilian head poked through the door greeting her with a trilling sound from high in its threat. It opened the door for her, pushing it in before she reached it.  It was just over three feet long and almost a foot deep.  The head of the thing crowed once, and Nico . . . greeted it with an admonishing smile.

“Of course you smelled the grill,” She sighed, and turned back to me. “Mr. Dresden, what’s the policy here on pets?  I mean, dogs are okay, but . . .”

I gave a look to Mac, who greeted the scaly head with only a raised eyebrow.

“Same as with people, mostly,” I said.  

Nico nodded and lead in a freakin’ Velociraptor, straight out of  Jurassic Park and into Mac’s.  It had to duck in order to make it into the place.  It was mostly the brown of trees and bare bushes, with dark striping that, in the low lights of the pub, looked purple.  Nico rubbed her hands over the animal’s head and neck, which, to my surprise, ruffled its feathers.  Then I realized that I couldn’t see its arms as they were hidden under too short wing feathers and tucked under the body, just like a bird.  The tail too had bird-like feathers all along its length.  But until she rubbed its neck, I didn’t even notice.  

I thought back to a Halloween several years ago.  Suddenly, I remembered in the hide of Zombie Sue, a Tyrannosaurus rex i reanimated to stop a bunch of necromancers.  She had patches of exposed skin and odd points I didn’t recognize as fully formed scales made perfect sense.  Seems being a largely ectoplasmic zombie didn’t bring back her feathers.  Or my mental image of T. Rex as a scaley behemoth affected the spell a bit.  I’d have to ask Bob about it.  

As they walked in, the other patrons looked at them with a mixture of awe and terror.  The dinosaur was big.  Really big.  Easily as tall as me (if not more), and more than twice as long.  If I had to guess, I’d say it weighed at least 400 pounds.  Yet it bounced and bobbed its body like it were nothing more than a really big chicken, or a particularly toothy turkey.   

Mouse leaned towards it, sniffing.  The raptor returned the gesture.  It was a tense moment, at least for me, but Mouse chuffed and sat back down as the raptor coughed in response before returning its gaze to the grill.

“Sorry,” she said with a wince, “She smelled the grill, and now she wants something.  So . . . Steak Sandwich?”

Mac nodded and pushed a bowl of pretzels towards the raptor.

It pecked once and somehow didn’t send it pretzels flying, or break the bowl.  It simply pushed them back with an awkward daintiness that put the patrons at ease.  Especially when it sit down to do this as Mac worked on the steak sandwich.

It wasn’t long before an athletic young man with dirty blond hair stormed, scolding the dinosaur for a few minutes, before giving in to very bird-like ‘puppy dog’ eyes of the dinosaur.    


It sat next to Mouse, and this alone calmed down the entire bar and gave them the courage to get close and ask if they could pet “Old Lace,” as he called her.  Another plaintive look got him to crumble and the dinosaur was cooing with enjoyment as everyone ruffled her feathers. Even with teeth as long as finger bones, and an inward foot claw bigger than my whole hand, a few coos and fluffs of its feathery neck made it seem as tame as, well, Mouse, who managed to get equal amounts of love after Old Lace preened his fur a bit. It lasted for some time, even after Old Lace took Mac’s steak down its gullet like a very enthusiastic crocodile, the enchantment of her being there didn’t waver.  I couldn’t help but join in. 

I mean, really, who knows how long it could be until I got to touch another dinosaur?


End file.
